So... the computer is sort of back to normal, the internet issue has been resolved. There's something deep in the innards of windows called "winsock catalogue", and if that catalogue somehow becomes faulty, the connection does not work anymore. Fortunately there are search engines, and there are other machines in this household that have internet connection, so following the semi-old adage "if in doubt, google it" I found that as a possible solution, followed the instructions, and there I was, back in touch with the 'Net.

I also searched for the reason for the bluescreen (which kindly also includes a self-description number), and it looks like there is a hardware fault to blame, either the RAM or the HDD. Since a thorough test of the RAM brought no errors, it is probably that my disk is nearing the end of its lifespan. Sigh.

So I'll be buying a new drive sooner than later.

And because this is probably all really boring for you (it would be for me, if it weren't my data, and thus a good part of my livelihood, on the line), here are some links to add some proper content to this post:

If you happen to be in England or are coming to London, there's a new exhibition starting in the British Library this Friday: Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War. It will run until February 19, 2019.

There have been dye analyses made on an ancient sock held in the Smithsonian, and the result is that several different colours have been achieved using the tree usual suspects woad, weld, and madder. Here's a shorter article about the sock in the Smithsonian magazine, and here is the complete article about the analysis of the sock and three more fragments: A multispectral imaging approach integrated into the study of Late Antique textiles from Egypt (Joanne Dyer, Diego Tamburini, Elisabeth R. O’Connell, Anna Harrison).

And right around the corner from where I live, there will be some archaeology done: Three digs are scheduled to be made in the Nuremberg area, two starting next week and the third next year... (article in German).

I like modern tech. I am very, very fond of my little computer, and I'm even more fond of its connection to the Internet, source of all things imaginable. Plus email, of course.

So I was a very unhappy little camper when I had a bluescreen of doom, which resulted in a surprise reboot with gratuitous checkdisk, and the latter telling me there are some inconsistencies (as in there is stuff that is supposed to be used for data, but looks empty). Not fun. Not fun at all, and it makes me a little wary about the state of my hard disk.

Just in case, I'm now making a second, separate backup (because I don't want to overwrite files on my regular backup with potentially corrupt ones) and then I'll see what things look like. Also then I'll try to find out why the thing refuses to connect to the Internet... which requires doing stuff to the innards of Windows, and rebooting, both things I'd prefer to do only after backing up my data.

If you have a computer, and are not backing up regularly yet - go get yourself an external drive or two, download SyncBack or some similar backup programme (there's plenty of free ones around), and get your data safe. You never know what will happen, or when, and having a backup is a really, really good idea. I have had three disks die on me up to this day, not counting the currently maybe-not-so-healthy-anymore-one, and two of them happened during my thesis writing. I learned the hard way about the importance of backup with the first crash, where I had no backup at all and actually went and paid for professional data restoration. I was lucky and got all my data back, though it took a while and cost what was for me, back then, a really painful shitload of money, so since then I have been a conscientious backupper.

Please go be one too. You will never regret it.

(This, by the way, was written on the most patient husband's computer... since mine still refuses to grant me access to the net. Hooray for redundancy. Oh, and the whole thing obviously happened when I was happy to again be sort of on top of things, and threw me right back into the oh-no-I-am-way-behind ditch. Sigh.)

...now I'm a Bee-Weaver...



This thing gave me an ear-worm. A slightly, hum, changed one... as now I am a bee-weaver, having woven a bee. Or something that should look more or less like one. (Thanks for the prompt, Christa!)

As you can clearly see, I'm still not the Queen Of Counting Correctly - else the torso would have been in the middle of the band and the wings the same size. I'm also not yet the Queen Of Getting Started Properly Right Away, and the two blue spots before the antennae start bear testimony to that.

The rest, though? I'm okay with how it went, seeing as it was all, again, made up as I went along. (My plans were slightly different, but at one point they had a chat with reality. Hence no incision between torso carapace and striped abdomen.)

If you look closely, there are slight irregularities in the stripey bit, and these are due to different twill direction. I was aware of these switches in direction but chose to ignore them. You might also be able to see the difference in appearance depending on twill/weaving direction - one direction has a much clearer, cleaner appearance than the other, and that is due to the ply direction of the warp threads, and a very common (and unavoidable) effect in this technique.

This was fun to weave, and didn't take a gazillion years (only half a gazillion). I've also learned a few more things, and got more used to some others.

Finally I noticed that my warp tension had crept up and up... so I've remedied that for the next part (I had to move the band along the loom-thingie anyways to have more free warp to work with). While I was concentrating so hard on getting all the turns correct, and being on the brink of going crazy at what felt like all times, it was very seductive to just up the warp tension for easier mechanical turning of the tablets... and I didn't really think about it. I just gave in to temptation.

So... while a relatively high warp tension means it's easier to turn the tablets without them getting caught in a neighbour tablet's threads, and the shed opens nicely all on its own, the downside to this is not only more friction on the thread (no issue at my tension and with my warp threads, though) but also rather acute angles in the diagonals, and stretched-out patterns. Which is not so nice. So now that I am a little more relaxed with the pattern-inventing, I want to go back to lower warp tension to have prettier designs. I just have to get back into the good habits of how to handle the tablets when turning so the getting-caught-issues are minimised.

Next up: Some doggy inspired by a medieval tablet-woven band used as a seal tag. And I hope you're not all sick and tired of hearing about tablet weaving already!

I'm still weaving, and still figuring out details, and trying to find the best sequence for explaining all the things. It's all sort of interwoven - the structure of the band, the sequence of actions, the technique, what you are looking at, what design elements you have available - and so there's a number of possible sequences for explaining.

Usually in these cases, though, some sequences work better than others, and though sometimes a different one is better for individual people,there's bound to be one that works for most... and that is the one I am looking for.

Which will be the sequence for my paper about this method at the European Textile Forum, and for the corresponding practical part, and if it looks promising, also the sequence of explanation for all following teachings. So... no pressure, right?

Other things are developing as well - I'm still poking at the Kickstarter thing for translating my thesis, and I'm hoping stuff will resolve itself soon so we can take a next step; there's some shop maintenance and product planning going on in the background (currently the main problem is not my ideas, but finding someone willing to make the actual products), there's planning for a workshop weekend in January to be finished, and why do I wonder where my days all go?

I'm still weaving. I'm also trying not to get completely sucked into that black hole eating all my brains and trying to eat all my time as well... because while things work really nicely on paper, and while I know what I want to do, some details still have not clicked yet. So the tree is not yet finished, and I'm not yet all happy.

Never mind that, though. There is something else going on too. Something delightful. Something... stony!

I have received a new delivery of stone spindle whorls, and they are beautiful, and they are going into the shop now. While you are getting a sneak preview of them here:

Like every summer, I am taking a break from doing the things I love but that are still work - so there will be no sending out of orders from the online shop , and there will be no blogging until the end of my summer break on August 12.

[caption id="attachment_3938" align="alignnone" width="425"] Summer! Hanging out with friends! Doing fun stuff!


Just to dampen any feelings of jealousy or awe you might get now - I'll not be on holidays for the whole time. Yes, I'd love that, but alas - a good chunk of the time is set aside to finally take care of some things that are never getting done in the day-to-day business-as-usual business, such as taking stock, trying to solve a few website problems, getting the shop software up to date again, working on some ad and info material, finishing a paper or two, and so on.

There will be a healthy chunk of doing nothing, too, though, and probably some additional ice cream, and there will be a bit of holidays and getting out and doing things that are purely fun.

So - have a lovely time, and I'll see you back here on the blog on August 13!

I've been working on the new things, and they are successfully finished and in the shop - you can now get a sample package of the carded wools as well as a sample package of the washed wool to prep yourself.

To celebrate all this newness, there's even more new things - I can now make coupons for the shop. Such as a coupon to get 10% off all the spinning fibres, for example. And though it's not May anymore (there's a German saying that goes "Alles neu macht der Mai", May makes everything anew), in the spirit of all new things I have done exactly that.

So if you order spinning fibres (including the sample packages, of course) before July 7, you can get 10% off their price if you use the coupon code ichglaubichspinn (which is German, obviously, as it allows this delightful double-entendre. It both means "I think I am spinning" and "I think I am crazy"). The end date for the coupon is just before the start of my summer break, which will run from July 9 to August 12, by the way - consider yourselves forewarned, as there will also be no blogging during this time.

Even more other newness is coming up behind the scenes, where I am working on getting new info leaflets for my shop, with the very kind help of one of my friends. It will take a bit, though, before they are done completely.

I also have some progress on the wood stuff research going on low-key (but still going on) behind the scenes, too. There were gorgeously helpful finds in Schleswig, dated to the 11th century, which should make for good models for yarnwinder reproductions.

Still more, but smaller newness: I have found a way to tweak the blog's typography a little bit, and hopefully the text now is a tad easier to read than before, when the letters were running just a little bit too densely. Let me know what you think of it in the comments, please!